


Trust Fall

by Electrikatty



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Menstruation, Save Her, also they do yoga, basically pidge is just suffering, space dad to the rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 04:11:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10733862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Electrikatty/pseuds/Electrikatty
Summary: Pidge usually dealt with her issues on her own. No one needed to be bothered with her problems when she could easily deal with them herself. Especially when it came to this. There was no way she would ask anyone for help with this. Because she was fine. She didn't need help.orPidge definitely needs help before her body turns completely against her.





	Trust Fall

**Author's Note:**

> I was having a really bad first day of my own period (I nearly fainted twice and almost puked twice), so I decided to do what everyone else does and basically project my misery onto fictional characters. 
> 
> Btw there's some description on nausea, but no one pukes. Also, dudes acting weird about periods. Just wanted to give some warning if that rubs you the wrong way. ;)

The entire day, Pidge had been feeling off. She felt tired, as if she had been doing a lot that day, which she hadn’t, but she also didn’t feel like sleeping. Regardless, she actually decided to try to sleep in her bed that night. She didn’t want to hinder herself by being worse off the next day.

Just as she began to doze, she came to a realization. Her eyes snapped open, and she launched out of bed. She grabbed everything she needed and headed towards the bathroom.

After making it, she let out a relieved sigh. She caught it just before it got bad.

She made it back to her room and curled up in bed. She knew she needed to get some rest before the first day of the week, which was usually the worst one. She felt hope that this week would be an easier one.

~*~ 

When she woke up a few hours later to a feeling of fire and sharp rocks in her abdomen, she knew she was wrong.

She let out a loud groan, which was cut off by her hand as she checked the time. It was just after four in the morning. She let out another moan, this one quieter. She tried to roll back over and fall asleep, but after struggling for a few minutes, she knew that wasn’t happening anytime soon.

She tried to pass the time by doing some decoding that she had been struggling with. She was too out of it to think clearly, she quickly realized, and stopped before she really messed something up. Her cramps were horrible, and she even felt a little sick. She had to distract herself.

She decided to watch one of the Altean movies she had been given by Coran. It was a science-fiction, which he had said he thought it “seemed like her niche!” He had been overjoyed when he saw the stars in Pidge’s eyes.

An hour into the movie, Pidge was starting to doze. She was fighting to stay awake because she was enjoying the movie just as she had anticipated. It was just getting to the good part! Sleep would not abade, though, and she didn’t even have time to pause the movie before her eyes shut and stayed shut one final time.

“...dge, you do _not_ want to miss breakfast this morning. Hunk did some super-cool experimenting in the kitchen and-”

She was not happy that this was how she was waking up. She groaned and tuned out Lance’s babbling about Hunk’s brilliance as a chef by taking her pillow and shoving it against her open ear. She just wanted to sleep. Was that too much to ask?

Lance, clearly the smartest out of them all, took this as a challenge. He screamed, “Hey, Pidge!”

She just about jumped out of her own skin when she launched up from the bed. Luckily, Lance had been nice enough to move her laptop before scaring her and it didn’t suffer the fate her pillow did. Her poor pillow fell off the bed as she regained her senses and glared at Lance. Who thought it’d be a good idea for _him_ to be her alarm clock?

Lance mock-pouted. “Someone’s grumpy.” He couldn’t keep from smiling though. “Not for long! If you had been listening, you would know that Hunk made chocolate chip pancakes!"

Pidge knew that should have made her happy. She couldn’t stop being grumpy though. She tried to act excited and forced herself to grin. “Oh, cool. I’ll be there in a bit. I wanna get ready first.”

Lance pouted again, still clad in his pajamas. “Breakfast is no fun unless you stay in your PJs, but I won’t stop you, I guess.” He turned to leave. “See you at the breakfast of kings.”

Pidge sighed. She moved to stand and close the door, but suddenly she couldn’t feel her legs. She almost collapsed to the floor but caught herself on her bed. She waited for the spots in her vision to dance away before getting up again, slowly this time. She stood there for a minute to decide how she felt. Her legs didn’t feel like they were there, and she felt light altogether. Her cramps weren’t currently trying to smother her insides and her stomach ache seemed to be gone. For now.

She made it to breakfast after deciding to not change out of her pajamas, mostly because it took too much effort. She also wanted to amuse Lance a little, but she would not have admitted that so easily.

She was greeted by a few ‘good morning’s as she entered the mess hall. She greeted them back as she took her seat.

“I see you decided to have breakfast the right way,” Lance joked with a smirk, but he looked happy.

“What’s the right way?” Keith asked, amused and fully dressed for the day.

Lance was clearly shocked that no one knew his wisdom. “With your PJs on!”

The light table banter continued as Hunk gave Pidge her plate. “Thanks, Hunk.” He sat down next to her with his own plate, clearly anticipating what Pidge thought of his recreation.

She felt her stomach churn at the thought of food, but she also wanted to eat it. She knew she needed to eat something. She squashed her disgust best she could, and she cut off a piece of pancake and bit it. Her eyes nearly popped out of her head.

“Hunk, this is amazing! How did you manage to make perfect chocolate chip pancakes? I mean, this tastes like something my mom would make.” She took more bites quickly, then added muffled, “It’s so good.”

Hunk looked pleased with himself. “I managed to get some ingredients when we went to the space mall recently. It took a bit of trial-and-error, but eventually, I got what I wanted.”

Pidge swallowed and beamed at Hunk. “Nice job! How’d you keep this a secret? Trial-and-error sounds more like trial-and-explosion.”

Hunk smiled sheepishly. “I cleaned up my messes really fast.” They laughed and enjoyed the rest of their meal.

When they were mostly finished, Allura gained everyone’s attention. “Paladins, if you recall correctly, I told you all that today we would be doing some special training. While it is important that we exercise our bodies for battle, we must also work on building our relationships with each other so your bond can grow stronger.”

Lance chuckled, “so, what? Are we gonna share secrets or something?”

Allura sighed, although she wasn’t too put out by Lance’s antics that day. That put Pidge on edge. She wasn’t bothered? “No, we’re going to build our trust in each other while working on flexibility.” She seemed very excited to have thought of this idea.

~*~ 

Allura wanted them to do yoga together, like the cheesy stock-photo yoga you’d look up at midnight at a friend’s slumber party and try to do together. Currently, Keith and Lance were fussing at each other as they tried to put their feet together and stretch their legs towards the ceiling as they kept a grip on each other's hands.

Pidge would have laughed at that if she currently wasn’t in so much pain that it felt like a knife was repeatedly stabbing her. Her abdomen was back to squeezing her insides to death, and her stomach was churning again from the breakfast she ate. (It was so good! How do you not eat chocolate space pancakes?) She fought the urge to hold her middle and curl up onto the floor and let herself die.

Just as Lance and Keith were just getting the hang of their exercise, Pidge thought her symptoms were fading. She felt hopeful for a minute.

She was wrong.

Well, not completely wrong. Her cramps and stomach ache were going away slowly, but with that came an increased dizzy feeling. She tried to lean against the wall behind her as casually as possible, but it looked as if she fell onto it. She cursed herself.

“You okay, Pidge?”

Shiro. That was Shiro talking to her. She should probably respond. But she was so tired. She didn’t want to think. She also didn’t want to worry anyone. She felt like this every month. One bad day wasn’t going to ruin her streak of taking care of herself quietly.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just…” She was struggling to think of something witty. “...getting tired of watching them flail around like a bunch of… stupids.” She cursed to herself again. Yeah, that sounded like a reassuring thing that Pidge would say. That, and her voice wavered slightly towards the end. Nice going, Pidge.

Shiro seemed to take the hint. “Ok, but you can let me know if you don’t feel good. I’ll let you go to your room to rest and tell the others if you aren’t feeling up to practice.”

“I’m alright, but thanks.” She didn’t feel like she was talking. She just knew words were coming from her mouth. That was good; Shiro wouldn’t get worried if she sounded okay. Which she was. She was okay.

“Close enough!” Allura’s voice broke the cloud over Pidge’s mind. “Keith, Lance, you both did well. I think it’s time we gave someone else a try.”

That didn’t bode well, Pidge decided.

“Shiro, Pidge, I have a good one for you both. It looks simple, but it can be quite difficult if you don’t do it just right. All you have to do is-”

Pidge stopped listening to the details but got the gist of it. Shiro was going to hold Pidge up above his head and she was going to lie flat while suspended mid-air. He was only going to hold her up by a leg and her opposite shoulder blade though. Well, that was easy. She could definitely do that. It’d be easier if she wasn’t trembling though.

They got into position, and Shiro lifted Pidge. It took all of Pidge’s strength to not bend the wrong way and screw the entire exercise up. She was panting, she knew, but she couldn’t control herself. She was exhausted. She vaguely registered Shiro asking how she was doing. Shiro kept talking, but she couldn’t hear him at this point. All her energy was focused on not losing consciousness.

She felt herself being lowered and held by a pair of strong arms, but she had her eyes squeezed shut. She would have felt embarrassed if she was more aware of the situation. She felt like she was going to pass out and puke. Her body decided to spare her and go with the former option.

It was a little too late to realize that she wasn’t okay.

~*~ 

She woke up to a pounding headache and _quiznak_ couldn’t they quiet down and maybe dim the lights a little?

Wait, why was she in a bed? Why were there people in her room?

She decided to try opening her eyes.

Okay, bad idea. Abort mission. Abort.

She groaned and squeezed her eyes back shut. Everyone quickly quit mumbling as if she put them on mute out of sheer force of will. There was a quiet pause, which Pidge was happy to sink into forever. Sadly, the world doesn’t always work how you want, especially today, Pidge thought.

“Pidge?"

“You okay?”

“What do you mean, is she okay? She passed out just an hour ago!”

“Keith, keep your voice down. She might have a headache.”

“Hold on, you guys. Pidge? You back with us?”

She wished she could go to sleep again where she couldn’t feel the pain she currently suffered from. She felt sick and tired and her head wouldn’t stop pounding.

Hold on, was that Shiro?

Was that all the paladins?

She tried to mumble out an affirmative, but that took too much effort, so she just nodded. There was shuffling of feet, then it was quiet again.

“How are you feeling?”

Eventually, she gained the resolve to try and act as if she were okay. She hated to worry them over nothing. She cracked her eyes open and tried to smirk, although it looked more like a lopsided grimace. “I feel like I was just punched in the gut and my head’s exploding.”

Pidge focused on Shiro sitting next to her bed and he looked worried but also a little amused at her reaction. “Well, you aren’t physically injured. Coran scanned you, but nothing came up. Now he’s waiting for the internal scan results. Maybe you’re sick?”

Pidge worked to fix her pillows so she could sit up on them and fell back with a hiss. Hunk grimaced for her in sympathy. “Be careful, Pidge, we don’t know what’s wrong with you!”

“Yeah, don’t go hurting yourself more. You scared the snot out of us!” Could Lance be any louder? Pidge chuckled despite her headache and mild annoyance. She knew he meant well. They all meant well.

“It’s nothing you guys need to worry abo-”

“WE NEED TO GET PIDGE INTO A POD IMMEDIATELY!” Coran screamed, clearly in a panic. The room’s doors slid open, and Coran burst in ready to grab Pidge and rush her to the pods.

Shiro stood from his chair. “What’s going on?”

If Pidge didn’t already know she was fine, the frightened expression on Coran’s face would have made her faint. Again. He looked ready to burst into tears. “One of her organs is dissolving from the inside out! It’s causing her to bleed profusely!”

Keith and Lance looked stunned, and Hunk seemed ready to fall over and faint himself. Shiro looked scared for Pidge’s life. Pidge decided that Alteans must not have dealt with this before, which was something she kinda wanted to ask about. She forgot that despite the fact they look human, they really aren’t.

“Ok, Pidge, don’t worry,” Shiro said, clearly more worried than she was with how much he was stuttering. Poor Shiro. “We’re gonna get you into a pod, and you’ll be fine.” He reached to pick her up, but Pidge pushed him away as best she could with her shaky arms.

“Hold on! I can explain. Although it’s a little awkward, I’d rather feel embarrassed for a while than stuck in a pod for a week.” Pidge could feel her face getting warm, but all eyes were on her. She couldn’t back down now. “I’m just on my period. I’ll be okay in a few days.”

Hunk looked a little awkward, but Shiro looked relieved and unaffected by what she said, as she expected. What she didn’t expect was for Keith to be burning and Lance to be completely chill. Heh, no pun intended.

“I guess that’s better than the alternative,” Hunk said as he rubbed the back of his neck and grinned at her. She was glad to know she wasn’t the only one to be mildly embarrassed.

Meanwhile, Lance was howling. “Oh, man! Keith is almost as red as his lion!”

Keith looked ready to punch Lance square in the jaw. “Would you sh-!” He growled, then lowered his voice. “Just shut up. You’ll upset Pidge’s head more than you already have.”

Hunk then also realized Lance was as cool as ice (okay yeah can’t hide that one was intended sue me). “How are you so… okay with this Lance? I’d think you’d be the type to run for the hills at this.”

Lance gave a look of mock-hurt. “Rude! And there are many perks of having a lot of brothers and sisters. Mainly sisters.”

Shiro chuckled as he sat back down, and Pidge leaned back against her pillows again. “Regardless of how we react now, we’re just glad you’re gonna be alright, but next time you need to tell us if you feel this bad, even if it’s not because of your cycle. This goes for all of us. Don’t hide when you’re struggling physically nor mentally.”

Pidge felt very comfortable with her friends right then (she might have even gotten a little emotional, but she wouldn’t have admitted that so easily), even if she was still in a good amount of pain. “Thanks, guys.”

“We’ll even make sure you feel better now,” Allura said as she entered the room with a tray of various things, “by battling those nasty symptoms.”

Coran looked baffled. “Allura, you knew about this?”

She giggled at him. “Of course, but I couldn’t exactly stop you after you dashed out of the med bay.” She turned back to Pidge. “Female Alteans’ bodies are kind of similar in make up to that of a female human’s. Our symptoms are less severe, even almost unnoticeable, made by our genetic engineering.”

Coran let out an affirmative noise of sorts, then laughed. “I guess sleeping for thousands of years really messes with your head.”

Pidge would have been much more excited at this new information if she felt better, but she didn’t, so she moaned. “No fair!”

As they laughed together and the others promised to help Pidge however they could before most leaving (some quicker than others [“Hey, hot-head! Where do you need to be so fast?” “Shut up, Lance!”]), Pidge knew that she was going to be feeling back to normal even faster than usual.

**Author's Note:**

> I guess to help with closure, I'd say she was malnourished and needed a lot more protein in her system. I'm just gonna say that because that's what happened with me.
> 
> Leaving comments makes me really happy, and also let me know if you spot any mistakes or got confused. I'll be sure to reply! :D


End file.
